who will you worship God or Satan?

[wuggle]

for christians,we call HIM almighty father,God.i thnk im ryt blue knight?is it not that obvious?

 

Obvious ? Erm, no not really. so this almighty father, or god (or whatever else you want to call him (her ?)) made the creator ? who is himself ? , WHo then made everything else.

 

erm, obvious , no!!

 

Why would someone create themselves (let alone how) and then proceed to create everything else which is inferior to himself ? and then just for good measure throw in a load of suffering and unfairness, for a giggle ?

Edited June 10, 2012 by wuggle

[black_shemer]

Obvious ? Erm, no not really. so this almighty father, or god (or whatever else you want to call him (her ?)) made the creator ? who is himself ? , WHo then made everything else.

 

erm, obvious , no!!

 

Why would someone create themselves (let alone how) and then proceed to create everything else which is inferior to himself ? and then just for good measure throw in a load of suffering and unfairness, for a giggle ?

 

,God is the alpha and omega no beginning and no end.i just realize now im not talking to a christian here.another non believer obviously

[fortyninethousand322]

It is only contested by people with a religious agenda and/or lack of education, who object to the notion that humans are not objectively special among all other living things.

 

I don't really care one way or the other about the "intelligent design vs evolution" debate as it has no practical impact on my life in any meaningful way, but is it not obvious that human beings are special among all other living things?

[black_shemer]

I don't really care one way or the other about the "intelligent design vs evolution" debate as it has no practical impact on my life in any meaningful way, but is it not obvious that human beings are special among all other living things?

 

yes you have a point there.we are special among any othey species.

It may not have an impact on u right now but it will someday.youll definitely need it

[sally4sara]

Tara, there is a reason why so many Catholics make up a considerable number of non-believers today. Likewise, there's also a reason that Bible-centered churches like mine are filled with ex-Catholics as well. I wouldn't call being brought up in Catholicism having had dealings with Christianity because the RCC has inserted so much absolute man-created nonsense into the mix, that it's no mystery as to why so many adult Catholics simply walk away when they're older either continuing to search for God, or just dumping the entire idea right there and deciding that the whole "God-thing" is just a fabricated story to comfort us throughout our lives.

 

What you may not realize is that when I was that disillusioned Catholic in my mid teens I was searching and looked and read about Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, and a lot of other possibilities because Catholicism just didn't stack up for me. I also at that time in my life considered and read about evolution trying to wrap my brain around it to decide if it may indeed be true. The thing is, I ended up rejecting it even before I decided that there was a God, because even after reading about evolutionary theory . . . to me, the idea or notion that all of this was the result of pure chance (look at the math on that sometime) was really not even remotely realistic. Forget the Bible or anything about God for a moment. My position is this and was back then as well. There had to be an intelligent designer involved in some way or all of this couldn't have occurred.

 

And there's really no reason to be worried that I'm "frighteningly fixated" because in the end who cares if all of this is pure chance anyway?

 

 

And all posted with no irony over deeming another christian sect's religious dogma "unlikely" and inferior to another.

That's all there ever is going on with religion. Oh so very ordinary people wanting to belong to some "I'm special and you're not" club without having to do anything special enough to be better than anyone else. Organized religion's ego hook has never been so glaringly obvious.

[irin]

who on earth waste their time following satan? :lmao:

[black_shemer]

Every animal is a unique combination of traits and abilities. We are not the only animals that use tools, we are not the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the longest living. Some sea creatures can shoot their teeth at prey at comparable velocity to bullets.

 

There are things we can do, as a society, that no other animal can. But there are things other animals can do that we can't.

 

In what way are we uniquely special? In what way are we so fundamentally set aside from all other living things. Theists say we are alone in possession of a soul, some immaterial, undetectable, ill-defined thing. They generally find it an affront to their self-perceived dignity and therefore insulting that we are related to apes, and that our notions of superiority are founded on nothing.

 

It is my position that there is no justified basis for this position, and that it is merely a form of narcisism.

 

were probably not the strongest but we human being are the wisest so be lucky your a human.now if u dont agree with me,go to a vet then ask him or her wat kind of specie are u in.

[fortyninethousand322]

Every animal is a unique combination of traits and abilities. We are not the only animals that use tools, we are not the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the longest living. Some sea creatures can shoot their teeth at prey at comparable velocity to bullets.

 

There are things we can do, as a society, that no other animal can. But there are things other animals can do that we can't.

 

In what way are we uniquely special? In what way are we so fundamentally set aside from all other living things. Theists say we are alone in possession of a soul, some immaterial, undetectable, ill-defined thing. They generally find it an affront to their self-perceived dignity and therefore insulting that we are related to apes, and that our notions of superiority are founded on nothing.

 

It is my position that there is no justified basis for this position, and that it is merely a form of narcisism.

 

Well we are alone in our ability and capacity to use logic and reason. Although I grant that's arguable. We are alone with the written word. We are the only species on this planet known to have visited outer space, to have fundamentally changed the landscape of the planet and we're on the verge of totally conquering our reproductive cycle.

 

I wouldn't say humans are "alone" in having possession of a soul. I mean sure, perhaps we are but I think it's a very bold assertion that I can neither accept nor deny.

[black_shemer]

Well we are alone in our ability and capacity to use logic and reason. Although I grant that's arguable. We are alone with the written word. We are the only species on this planet known to have visited outer space, to have fundamentally changed the landscape of the planet and we're on the verge of totally conquering our reproductive cycle.

 

I wouldn't say humans are "alone" in having possession of a soul. I mean sure, perhaps we are but I think it's a very bold assertion that I can neither accept nor deny.

 

ah yes.be kind to animals around you

[The Blue Knight]

My biggest issue is when people just repeat fallacies that are so obviously wrong (like Blue Knight's "it's only a theory, not a fact") and yet insist that they understand science only too well. As if his problem is that he knows too much.

 

Honestly, what do they think constitutes actual knowledge?

 

Sometimes I hope it's just internet keyboard warrior syndrome, otherwise if it's genuine then it makes you wonder just how deep the damage runs.

 

There's that provocatively obvious tone of "I'm better than you because I'm smarter than you" pattern I've come to know oh so well from having dealt with atheists and evolutionists throughout the years. Which is why I said earlier, these conversations never benefit anyone and only end up repeating the same tired arguments over and over again.

 

What you so often forget is this. There are plenty of individuals in the scientific world of biology, astronomy, chemistry, cosmology, anthropology, physics, etc who do believe as I do. Granted they are a minority among their peers, but something led them to rethink everything that they had learned. For them, the science didn't completely add up and they work in the actual fields that are supposed to support evolution! They concluded that there must have been a first cause for all creation. Frankly, I even suspect that there are a handful of scientists who are closet believers because to expose themselves is to risk their careers and their livelihood. Consider this story:

 

NASA scientists claims he was harassed, demoted over intelligent design beliefs | Fox News

 

People like KathyM and I didn't just drink the kool aid right from the first glass served to us. In fact I reject what I grew up with, that being RC and find the teachings to be an abominable deviation from Biblical Christianity, but that's an entirely different subject.

 

Why is it so difficult for those who come from a hardcore evolutionary / atheistic position to understand that there are plenty of intelligent individuals on our side who simply came to a different conclusion without it being about "wondering just how deep the damage runs"? Do you consider all those scientists who came to believe in God or intelligent design to be "damaged" as well Joe? Or are they just stupid and uninformed as well?

 

Joe, like Tara, you are free to put your faith into ice cores and tree rings, and even the idea that we all rose up from a single cell that may or may not have been the result of a primordial pond being zapped by lightening. It in no way bothers or harms me in the least. Freedom and liberty are the hallmarks of our Constitution and they are for the atheist to enjoy as much as the Christian.

 

I'll leave you with three Robert Jastrow quotes. Jastrow as you may or may not know (unless you recall the days of the first moon landings as I do) was a noted high level physicist and astronomer with credentials pretty much unequaled. He was with NASA from it's inception. He was also the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and up until his death a couple of years ago worked at Columbia University as Professor of Geophysics. Some of his quotes over the years have stuck with me because I think he's just blatantly honest, which isn't always the case within the scientific community. I wonder after reading these . . . do you find that "the damage even runs deep" in Mr. Jastrow as well? or perhaps you're just smarter than a rocket scientist.

 

"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."

 

"Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."

 

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

[The Blue Knight]

Yes, but at least I know where I'm going, whereas you'll always be wondering where you'll end up....

Tara, if indeed you're right and I end up being worm food when I pass away, what have I lost in the process? Absolutely nothing. If I lived a lie and the whole God thing was as you believe, a false hope in my life, I've gone to my grave not knowing either way.

 

If on the other hand the Bible is right, and there is an eternity that we can't escape no matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise . . . then you may indeed have much to lose.

[d'Arthez]

If on the other hand the Bible is right, and there is an eternity that we can't escape no matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise . . . then you may indeed have much to lose.

This is merely a rewording of Pascal's argument why it would be better to believe. However, it is nonsense to claim that God exists, because if he did not exist we lose nothing in the processing believing he does exist.

[The Blue Knight]

And therein lies your problem; 'A bit of knowledge' because you 'dabble now and then'.

 

"A little learning is a dangerous thing."

I was speaking of my 20 years in law enforcement. The "dabble in forensics" was supposed to be kind of humorous since I do work in evidence quite often, but I think that point was missed.

[The Blue Knight]

disregarding the fact that hell does not exist, you're wrong again.

 

in the original hebrew text the word sheol was translated to mean 'hell' but sheol is equivalent to the term 'grave' or 'death' in hebrew terms. there was nothing about fire or punishment at all. as with so many other things, the whole fire and punishment bit was added centuries after the supposed death of supposed jesus from roman philosophers trying to make greek philosophy fit with concocted christian philosophy, augustine in particular.

 

in short, it was made up centuries after jesus' death, if there even was a jesus.

 

if you need further instruction just keep replying.

There's nothing to reply too. You obviously have it all figured out. It's just one giant Jesus conspiracy concocted by the Roman philosophers who were attempting to combine Greek philosophy with Christianity. Wow. And I'm the one accused of following a blind faith and lacking evidence??

[The Blue Knight]

Trust me, people much smarter than you have thought of this.

 

Right here is where I know you're full of it. When you make the elementary blunder of thinking that theories become facts once they have enough proof, you trip over a stumbling block an inch high. Read up on the distinction some more, and you might be taken more seriously.

 

Also, I note that all your links come from creationist websites, at least some of which subscribe to young-earth creationism. This has almost certainly warped your understanding of the science involved because of their tendency to subjugate all other factors to doctrinal obedience.

 

The funny thing is that you don't need to resort to these charlatans to dig up examples of the limitations of paleoclimatology. The very scientists that use these methods are just as aware and open about their shortcomings.

 

I really doubt it. You've betrayed an astonishing ignorance of even basic scientific concepts.

Much smarter than me and you my friend which is why I cited someone like NASA Physicist and Astronomer Robert Jastrow for you to deal with. But you can't. Because you don't have his credentials, his brain, his research, or his ability to be objective.

 

Just out of curiosity then, are those scientists from all the fields I've named in my previous post who came to believe in God or intelligent design also showing an "astonishing ignorance?"

[The Blue Knight]

And who 'created' the intelligent designer, someone more intelligent ??

The same can be asked of where all matter, energy, and space came from if there was no designer. It must have just gone *POOF* one day spontaneously.

[The Blue Knight]

Your position is completely self-refuting, Blue Knight. If this is too amazing to have been cobbled together by chance (which is itself an invalid argument) and therefore had to have been designed by something else, what then designed that designer?

 

If complexity mandates a designer, then that also applies to the designer as well, and any escape clause you might try to inject to break the infinite regress may as well just apply to the universe itself.

 

I would also suggest that your understanding of probabilities is also very suspect, since this is generally a stumbling block for people who reject science based on the "what are the odds of that happening!" line of reasoning. I can pretty confidently say that your problem is in assuming a very specific fated outcome (ie, a universe with us in it). But an analogy can help highlight the faulty reasoning in that assumption:

 

Shuffle a standard deck of 52 cards and lay them out in sequence. The odds laying out every card in ascending order, grouped by suit, is:

 

1 in 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000

 

But then again, the exact same odds apply for any sequence. And to take the traditional creationist argument from odds, then we should conclude that it is impossible to lay out a 52-card deck in any sequence is too far fetched. Why, it's the same odds as a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a 747, fuelled and ready for take-off!

 

The problem you have with evolution is simply one of your own making. It is consistent with the fossil record, it has been observed both in the wild and in the lab, we have observed the emergence of beneficial traits, we have vestigal organs and dormant genes that are pointless and useless if we were to have been "intelligently designed" in our species' present form.

 

It is only contested by people with a religious agenda and/or lack of education, who object to the notion that humans are not objectively special among all other living things.

 

Again, you've managed to completely sidestep all the scientists who BECAME intelligent design advocates, or believers in God AFTER they were established in their fields. So do I understand that they all "lack education"?

 

I'm off now to go worship that God who doesn't exist. But worry not. It will be my wasted time if He doesn't exist.

 

Have a good morning.

[wuggle]

The same can be asked of where all matter, energy, and space came from if there was no designer. It must have just gone *POOF* one day spontaneously.

 

Completely agree.

 

But here is the nub of the problem to me, 'religous' people when asked the question who or what made everthing answer "God, who has no creator, and that is the end of the matter, all argument against this is irrelevant, you either have faith in this or not" . They profess 'certainty' in what any amount of common sense would indicate is a silly answer. But 'non religous' people answer "We dont' know, but we are going to keep on trying to figure it out".

 

I admire people who are not afraid to admit they don't know and don't limit their lives by sticking to a dogmatic world-view that even they can't explain any better than "you just have to believe".

[thatone]

further etymological research also points to a Germanic input:

 

 

But again, no mention of fire, brimstone or eternally painful damnation there.

Dante has a lot to answer for....

 

The same dictionary has this definition for 'Sheol':

 

the sad thing is people like Dante had their talents so wasted on the all powerful church. the divine comedy is genius from a literary standpoint, think of what else the great minds of the time could've done if the only way to earn money and stay in political good graces weren't through the church.

 

There's that provocatively obvious tone of "I'm better than you because I'm smarter than you" pattern I've come to know oh so well from having dealt with atheists and evolutionists throughout the years. Which is why I said earlier, these conversations never benefit anyone and only end up repeating the same tired arguments over and over again.

 

What you so often forget is this. There are plenty of individuals in the scientific world of biology, astronomy, chemistry, cosmology, anthropology, physics, etc who do believe as I do. Granted they are a minority among their peers, but something led them to rethink everything that they had learned. For them, the science didn't completely add up and they work in the actual fields that are supposed to support evolution! They concluded that there must have been a first cause for all creation. Frankly, I even suspect that there are a handful of scientists who are closet believers because to expose themselves is to risk their careers and their livelihood. Consider this story:

 

NASA scientists claims he was harassed, demoted over intelligent design beliefs | Fox News

 

People like KathyM and I didn't just drink the kool aid right from the first glass served to us. In fact I reject what I grew up with, that being RC and find the teachings to be an abominable deviation from Biblical Christianity, but that's an entirely different subject.

 

Why is it so difficult for those who come from a hardcore evolutionary / atheistic position to understand that there are plenty of intelligent individuals on our side who simply came to a different conclusion without it being about "wondering just how deep the damage runs"? Do you consider all those scientists who came to believe in God or intelligent design to be "damaged" as well Joe? Or are they just stupid and uninformed as well?

 

Joe, like Tara, you are free to put your faith into ice cores and tree rings, and even the idea that we all rose up from a single cell that may or may not have been the result of a primordial pond being zapped by lightening. It in no way bothers or harms me in the least. Freedom and liberty are the hallmarks of our Constitution and they are for the atheist to enjoy as much as the Christian.

 

I'll leave you with three Robert Jastrow quotes. Jastrow as you may or may not know (unless you recall the days of the first moon landings as I do) was a noted high level physicist and astronomer with credentials pretty much unequaled. He was with NASA from it's inception. He was also the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and up until his death a couple of years ago worked at Columbia University as Professor of Geophysics. Some of his quotes over the years have stuck with me because I think he's just blatantly honest, which isn't always the case within the scientific community. I wonder after reading these . . . do you find that "the damage even runs deep" in Mr. Jastrow as well? or perhaps you're just smarter than a rocket scientist.

 

"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."

 

"Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."

 

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

 

 

did you even read the article you posted? the guy wasn't a nasa employee. he worked for a contractor that set up computer networks for them. the contractor laid him off due to budget cuts. nasa wasn't even involved.

 

i suspect most of your 'knowledge' comes from skimming misleading headlines and ignoring the details.

 

furthermore, no, there is no god in the modern origin of the universe theories at all.

 

since you'll like it better in the form of a faux news link...

 

Freaky Physics Proves Parallel Universes Exist | Fox News

 

expand that to the idea that black holes and big bangs are just points where parallel universes have become linked or banged into each other.

 

then the infinite universe seems a lot more....infinite, so to speak.

 

the answers are in the math. it's just a matter of figuring the math out. if the universe is in fact infinite, chance is eliminated. it's infinite, meaning that all forms of matter even down to individual people walking around in your church, exist in atheist form somewhere else, and hindu form, and hebrew form, and axe murderer form, and abortion doctor form. ALL possible combinations.

 

any god theory denotes some form of matter being greater than the infinite universe. if that were the case, the universe would not be infinite. you can't mathematically be 'more than' infinite.

 

so no, there will never be room for god in the science of studying the nature of the universe. sorry.

Edited June 10, 2012 by thatone

[fortyninethousand322]

Completely agree.

 

But here is the nub of the problem to me, 'religous' people when asked the question who or what made everthing answer "God, who has no creator, and that is the end of the matter, all argument against this is irrelevant, you either have faith in this or not" . They profess 'certainty' in what any amount of common sense would indicate is a silly answer. But 'non religous' people answer "We dont' know, but we are going to keep on trying to figure it out".

 

I admire people who are not afraid to admit they don't know and don't limit their lives by sticking to a dogmatic world-view that even they can't explain any better than "you just have to believe".

 

Well to be honest nobody really "knows" anything concerning God and the origin of the universe. None of us were there and no pictures exist.

 

At that point you either don't know but believe (theist), don't know and don't believe (atheist), or don't know and don't care (apatheist). One day each of us will know who was right and who wasn't. In the meantime however, I think there's more than enough room for all of us.

[KathyM]

This is what really worries me more than anything else.

Christians of this ilk have the gall to call us 'non-believers' disillusioned and blinkered - yet they limit their research to a narrow field of "if it's written by a Christian it's more credible".

 

We believe what we believe, because we research thoroughly, we don't 'dabble now and then'.

What you conveniently forget is that many of us have had a focused, religious and theological upbringing.

And we know why we have turned away from it.

We have seen both sides of the argument which is why we no longer have dealings with Christianity.

 

You on the other hand, seem frighteningly fixated.

And that's worrying.

Why is it so hard to believe that there are Christians who have willingly, actively, made a choice to believe what is written in the Bible? People who have heard other theories and belief systems, and decide that Christianity is what makes the most sense to them? Just because you decided to believe something else and Christians have decided the Bible makes the most sense to them than any other theory or belief system doesn't make Christians any less enlightened or narrow minded. They just have a different belief system than you. Why is that so hard for you to accept? Just because you have turned away from your faith doesn't mean others need to. I know a man, my son actually, that had friends of various faiths, and studied the belief systems of many different faiths in college, since his major required it, and he actively chose the Christian faith despite much exposure to other faiths and other people with different faiths. People can and do chose Christianity over other religions all the time, and they also convert from other religions to Christianity as well. People actually choose this belief system over others because that is what makes the most sense to them.

[thatone]

Well to be honest nobody really "knows" anything concerning God and the origin of the universe. None of us were there and no pictures exist.

 

At that point you either don't know but believe (theist), don't know and don't believe (atheist), or don't know and don't care (apatheist). One day each of us will know who was right and who wasn't. In the meantime however, I think there's more than enough room for all of us.

 

we DO know. just because you choose to ignore what we've learned in the past 100 years because it doesn't fit with your political/relligious viewpoints doesn't mean that it isn't knowable.

 

it just means that YOU don't know it.

 

we know the trajectories of visible galaxies (of which there are a lot, since the hubble telescope, which republicans fought the funding of on religious notions). we know there are planets like ours. we know there are black holes at the center of galaxies, whereas the existence of them was debated a mere 20 to 30 years ago.

 

so yes, we know.

 

and no, there's no room for the willfully ignorant. time can't be undone. we are an information/technology driven society in western industrialized nations. those who disregard information will be marginalized as lesser citizens as time goes on. those with religious power to lose see this. that's why they've gotten louder in the past few years. they're a dying animal in a cage.

Edited June 10, 2012 by thatone

[fortyninethousand322]

we DO know. just because you choose to ignore what we've learned in the past 100 years because it doesn't fit with your political/relligious viewpoints doesn't mean that it isn't knowable.

 

it just means that YOU don't know it.

 

we know the trajectories of visible galaxies (of which there are a lot, since the hubble telescope, which republicans fought the funding of on religious notions). we know there are planets like ours. we know there are black holes at the center of galaxies, whereas the existence of them was debated a mere 20 to 30 years ago.

 

so yes, we know.

 

and no, there's no room for the willfully ignorant. time can't be undone. we are an information/technology driven society in western industrialized nations. those who disregard information will be marginalized as lesser citizens as time goes on. those with religious power to lose see this. that's why they've gotten louder in the past few years. they're a dying animal in a cage.

 

Whatever man. I say just live and let live. If you don't like religion or religious people no one is going to force you to associate with it or them. But, that knife cuts both ways. If people want to keep their beliefs they're not harming anyone by doing so.

[thatone]

Whatever man. I say just live and let live. If you don't like religion or religious people no one is going to force you to associate with it or them. But, that knife cuts both ways. If people want to keep their beliefs they're not harming anyone by doing so.

 

they are harming, as long as we have elected governments.

 

Why is it so hard to believe that there are Christians who have willingly, actively, made a choice to believe what is written in the Bible? People who have heard other theories and belief systems, and decide that Christianity is what makes the most sense to them? Just because you decided to believe something else and Christians have decided the Bible makes the most sense to them than any other theory or belief system doesn't make Christians any less enlightened or narrow minded. They just have a different belief system than you. Why is that so hard for you to accept? Just because you have turned away from your faith doesn't mean others need to. I know a man, my son actually, that had friends of various faiths, and studied the belief systems of many different faiths in college, since his major required it, and he actively chose the Christian faith despite much exposure to other faiths and other people with different faiths. People can and do chose Christianity over other religions all the time, and they also convert from other religions to Christianity as well. People actually choose this belief system over others because that is what makes the most sense to them.

 

why is western christianity at such odds with islam? is it so hard to accept that they have chosen islam over christianity? the bible is violent too, so what if they want to stone women to death for being accused of adultery, or impale people who convert from islam to something else? christians used to murder non christians too.

 

why can't you just accept their faith and let them murder whoever they want?

[fortyninethousand322]

they are harming, as long as we have elected governments.

 

And now we get to the crux of the issue. The left fears that the right wants to make society in the image of a theocracy while the right fears that the left wants to use government power to weaken (or destroy) religion. Both sides think they're just acting in self defense so they can't back down.

 

Maybe if the government wasn't so involved in everyone's lives this wouldn't be a problem. Though I'm afraid nobody would let that happen.